The Only Gift
by DragonBlood-Katana
Summary: Written for TsukkiHina Week 2016. Prompt: Headphones. Kei's birthday party didn't quite go as planned.


Kei had never really been one to celebrate birthdays. Even when he was little, he hadn't had big parties or family get-togethers. Admittedly, it was partially because his only actual friend was Tadashi, but the other part was that he didn't like loud, crowded situations like mass-invite parties turned out to be all too often.

This was why he wasn't entirely sure how he had let Shouyou coerce him into letting him throw a birthday party for Kei. Actually, Kei did know. _It'll just be the team,_ Shouyou had said. _No one else will be invited,_ Shouyou had said. In the end, though, the entire team, the team's families, and their families' friends had all ended up coming and now the apartment was far too crowded for Kei's taste. It hadn't been big to begin with, but with upwards of thirty people packed inside it, walking was like navigating through a can of sardines.

In other words, it was hell.

For the last hour, Kei had been approached by far too many people bearing gifts and well wishes and too-bright grins and cheerful exclamations of 'happy birthday!' At first, he had been okay; he had been able to half-convince himself that it was just like any normal social setting and that he'd be able to just nod and say thanks and the evening would disappear quickly. He had been wrong. With every person who showed up to try to rope him into the polite nonsense chit-chat they called conversation Kei could feel his energy draining slowly but surely out of him; the longer the interaction lasted the faster his tolerance died. Twenty people later, he felt like jumping out a window just to escape everyone else. It was awful.

The worst part about it was that Shouyou was nowhere to be seen; he was socializing with everyone, flitting around the room. Every time Kei tried to approach him, though, someone would grab him and by the time Kei was able to shake them off, Shouyou would be gone. Usually, Shouyou would be able to distract the attention off of Kei when it was getting hard for him to socialize; Shouyou always knew when his boyfriend was getting burnt out and would try to give Kei a little time to recharge. However, Kei was nearing his limit and Shouyou had disappeared again, so Kei did the only thing he could think of.

He fled to the bathroom.

Thankfully, it was unoccupied. Kei slipped into the bathroom and shut the door behind him, letting out a long, relieved breath. His head fell back against the door with a quiet _thunk_ and Kei shut his eyes, sighing again. Slowly he allowed his knees to give out, sliding down the door to sit down with his knees pulled to his chest and his head in his hands. Everything felt shaky as the tension that came from being in a too-crowded area with too many people for too long slowly left Kei's muscles. After a few moments, Kei forced himself to stand, moving to hide in the shower. He knew it was cowardly and childish, but he didn't want to deal with people and he didn't want to be pulled back out into that so-called party. He closed the shower curtain and sat back down, ignoring how cold the porcelain beneath him was.

Kei took off his glasses and pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes until he saw spots, then let his head rest against the wall and his arms folded in his lap. He worked on steadying his breathing – _in, two, three, four; out, two, three, four, five_ – and clenched his hands to keep them from shaking. It didn't really work, but he tried to pretend that it did.

Kei didn't really know how long he sat in the bathtub. He didn't have a way to judge the time passing; he wasn't wearing his watch and even if he was he wouldn't have checked it because it would only distress him to know exactly how much time he had been gone, especially since it seemed that no one was really bothering to look for him. With that many people – too many people – in one place, it really wasn't a surprise that no one had noticed that he was missing, but he knew it would've crushed his already-precarious emotions to know that no one really noticed him despite the fact that he was technically the reason for the gathering.

After a while, there was a quiet knock on the door. Kei barely heard it, but it was enough for him to jump. The only sound he had heard for God-only-knew who long was the dull murmur of the party from down the hall in the living room, so hearing something so close was startling.

"Kei?" It was Shouyou; Kei relaxed. He hadn't even realized he had been tense in the first place. "Are you in there?"

It took Kei a moment to find his voice; even when he did he felt like it was too quiet. "I'm in here. You can come in if you want."

Kei heard the door click open and then footsteps on the linoleum of the bathroom floor. The door shut again and only then did Kei pull back the shower curtain. Shouyou smiled sweetly when he saw Kei, setting a package wrapped in baby blue wrapping paper on the counter and then holding up Kei's headphones.

"I figured you'd be hiding in here. I brought you your music if you need to calm down."

Kei shook his head slightly, pushing his glasses up on the bridge of his nose. Shouyou nodded and replaced the package on the counter with the headphones, then came over to sit in the bathtub. He settled himself between Kei's legs and smiled gently, setting the package in Kei's hands.

"I brought you this… I wanted you to be able to open my present in private in case this happened."

Kei unwrapped it silently, then couldn't help but smile. Shouyou had bought him yet another pair of headphones; these ones were high-quality but that definitely wasn't why Shouyou had bought them. One ear piece was a cartoonish sun, the other one an equally cartoonish moon.

Shouyou turned around and wrapped his arms around Kei's neck, pulling him gently in for a kiss. "Happy birthday, Kei. Are you ready to go back now?"

Kei nodded and stood, looping his new headphones around his neck.


End file.
